The “difficult decision” to put off the event was reached Tuesday, JPL spokeswoman Veronica McGregor said in an e-mail to The Times.

“If we can hold it later in the year after the budgetary dust settles, we will,” she wrote.

Last month, NASA issued an internal memo suspending “all education and public outreach activities … pending further review” because of sequestration. In the memo, the agency asked departments to help assess which activities should go forward.